The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-11-25

/
enforce il, and destructive to thu
children who must submit to the process
You find children at nine aud ten years Of
age with school lessons only appropriate
for children of fifteen. II children are
kept in school from nine to three o'clock
| no home study except music ought to b<
required of them. Six hours Of study ID
enough for any child. The rest of the day
ought to be devoted torecreation and pure
fun. But you can not begin too early the
moral culture Of a child or ON too conn
plete q scale. You can look back upon
your own life and remember what mighty
impressions were made upon you at five
or six years of age. Oh, that child does
not sit SO silent during y our conversation
to be uninfluenced by II. You say he does
not understand Although much of your
phraseology is beyond his grasp, he
is gathering up from your talk in.
fiuences which will affect his i'm.
mortal destiny. From the ques-
ton he asks you long afterward you find
he understood all about what You were
saying. You think the child does not ap-
preciate that beautiful cloud, but its most
delicate lines are reflected into the very
depths of the youthful nature, and score
Of years from now you will see the
shadow Of that cloud in the tastes and re-
finemsnts developed. The song with which
you sing that child to sleep will echo
through all its life, and ring back from
the very arches of Heaven. think that
often the first seven years Of child's life
decides whether it shall be irascible, wasp
ish, rude, false. hypocritical. or gentle.
truthful, frank, obedient honest and
Christian.
The present generations of men will
pass of very much as they are now. Al
though the Gospel is offered them, the
general rule is that drunkards die drunk
ards, thieves die thieves, ibertines die
libertines. Therefore, to the youth we
turn. Before they sow wild oats get them
10 SOW wheat and barley. You fill the
bushel measure with good corn and there
will be no room for husks. Glorious Al.
fred Goodman was converted at ten years
Of age. At Carlisle. Pa, during the
progress of a religious meeting in the
Methodist Church, while many were
kneeling at the foot of the altar, this boy
knelt in a corner of the church. all by
himself, and said: "Precious Saviour,
thou art saving others, oh, will thou not
save me?" A Presbyterian elder knelt be-
side him and led him into the light.
Enthroned Alfred Cookman! Tell me
from the skies, were you converted too
early? But can not hear his answer. 1t
is overpowered by the huzzas Of tens of
thousands who were brought to God
through his ministry. Isaac Watts, the
great Christian poet, was converted at
nine years Of age. Robert Hall. the great
ksek - k1A ~
twelve years of age. Jonathan Edwards
the greatest Of American logicians, was
converted ut seven years Of age.
Oh, for one generation Of holy men and
women. Shall it be the next? Fathers
AMI mothers, you, under God. are to de
eide whether from your families shall go
forth towards, inebriates, counterfeiters,
blasphemers, and whether there shall be
those bearing your image and carrying
your name fostering in the low haunts Of
vice, and foundering in dissipation and
making the midnight OF their lives
horrid with q long howl of ruin, or
whether from your family affairs shall
come the Christians, the refOrmers, the
teachers, the ministers Of Christ, the COM
forters of the troubled, the healers of the
sick, the enacters of good laws, the found
ers Of charitable institutions, and great
many who shall in the humber spheres
of toll and usefulness serve God and the
best interests of the human race.
You can not as parents shirk the re-
sponsibility. God has charged You with
a mission, and all the thrones Of Heaven
are waiting to see whether you will do
your duty. We must not forget that it is
not so much what we teach our children
as what we are in their presence. We
wish them to be better than we are, but
the probability is that they will only
be reproductions OF our own character.
German literature has much to say of the
"specter of Brocken." Among those
mountains travellers in certain conditions
of the atmosphere SEQ themselves copied
on a gigantic scale in the clouds. At first
the travellers do not realize that it Is them
selves on q larger scale. When they lift
q hand or move the head this monster
specter does the same, and with such en-
largement Of proportions that the scene
is most exciting, and thousands have gone
to that place just to behold the specter Of
Broken. The probability is that some OF
our faults which we consider small md
insignificant, if we do not put an end to
them, will be copied on q larger sale
in the lives Of our children, and per
haps dilated and exaggerated into
spectral proportions. You need
not go as far of as the Broken to see
that process. The first thing in i'm.
portance in the education of our chill
dren is to make ourselves, by the grace of
God, fit examples to be copie1. The day
will come when you must confront that
child, not in the church pew on a calm
Sabbath, but amid the constern alton Of
the rising dead, and the flying heavens
and q burning world. From your side
that son or daughter, bone of your bone.
heart of your heart. the fathers brow his
brow, the mothers eye his eye. shall &c
forth to an eternal destiny. What will
in the same golden highway aud hear
their voices in the same rapturous song.
illustrations, while the eternal ages last,
Of what faithful parent could, under
God, accomplish.
l was reading Of a mother who, dying,
had all her children about her, and tool
each one Of them by the hand and asked
them to meet her in Heaven, and with
tears and sobs such as those only know
who have stood by the death-bed of
good old mother, they all promised.
But there was young man Of nineteen
who had been very wild and reckless, and
hard, and proud, and when she took hi.
hand she said: '.Now. my boy, want
you to promise me before die that yor
will become a Christian and meet
me in Heaven" The young
man made no answer, for there was sc
much for him to give up if he made and
kept such a promise. But the aged mother
persisted in saying: "You won't deny me
that before go, will you: This parting
must not be forever. Tell me now you will
serve God and meet me in the laud where
there is no parting" Quaking with